Always well-intentioned, not always sane.

What’s in a Name?

This time last month I was doing some brain-storming. I knew I wanted to open my own fabric shop, but I wasn’t quite sure what to name it. What would be descriptive, and memorable, and stand out from the crowd? I came up with many, many clever puns on the words “sewing”, “quilting”, and “fabric” but guess what? It’s all been done before. No matter what I dreamed up, someone else had beat me to it. Well drastic times call for drastic measures, or at least some foriegn language. Spanish? Can’t speak it. French? I was always terrible at French. German? Nicht, sounds too gutteral. Well, Italian it is then.

I’d like to introduce you to my shop, Cucire.

Q-What? , my husband asked dubiously. That’s impossible to pronounce.

Yes, so it is. A true Italian would likely say something along the lines of “coo-CHEER-uh” with a nice, long rolled R sound. My daughter says Coochie. The word looks like you would say, “Q-sear-A”. Sure, that’s fine! It’s all okay, because you can prononuce it whichever way you may like. However you say it, you’ll probably remember that little shop with the ridiculous name. At least that is what I am hoping. As for meaning, Cucire simply means “to sew.” There you have it!

I spent a semester in Italy, and it was one of the highlights of my life. Italians know a little something about fashion, and they know a little something about quality. I think it is the perfect inspiration for my little shop.
I intend to carry fabrics with a modern flair geared for sewing of all types. There will be quilting cottons, mostly solids, but a lot of voiles and knits as well. I am also carrying high quality threads and needles, and am working on stocking matching threads for each of the fabrics I have listed. That piece of the store is a work in progress. I have some King Tut threads in stock, and have Aurifil threads and fun thread kits on the way. There is also a section of the shop devoted to sewing notions and tools. I’m starting out small both by design and necessity, but I’m planning on ‘biggering and biggering and biggering’, as the Onceler would say.

I literally have boxes showing up daily, and I love it. I’ll love it even more when our renovation is done and all of the merchandise doesn’t have to live in our dining room. All in good time, I know!

It’s exciting, and scary, and overhwleming all together. I have a feeling I will be stalking my Etsy stats for a few days with more that a little nervousness. I hope you all like what I have put together, and I would definitely welcome your support as I try and get this little venture up and running. Even if you don’t sew, you can help me out tremendously by sharing my shop with your sewist friends and relatives. I’m not going to do any formal marketing until I have a bit more stock on hand, so any word of mouth help here at the start would mean to world to me. I have the cutest darn business cards you have ever seen (promise!) and I would love to share a few with you. For all of my potential customers, I want you to know I will do everything I can to earn and keep your business. I want to provide a service that is useful and helpful, and if I get it wrong, I want to know. I’m going to work hard for you!

I think that’s it. It’s a big day tomorrow. Wish me Luck.

(Want to know a little secret? The shop is actually already open, for ease of arranging listings. Take a peak if you would like. . Bookmark and favorite and purchase away!!!)

(One more little secret while I’m at it, use code “LOCAL” at checkout if you would like to pick up your order, or ‘KCMQG’ if you want me to hand deliever to the meeting and the shipping charges will magically dissapear! These codes will work forever, or at least until 2016.)

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